This morning, a huge power faillure in The Netherlands, almost 4 million people without electricity. The shops were closed, trafficlights didn't work, no telephone, and no mobile phone. Airplanes to Amsterdam couldn't land and were diverted to Brussels, all trains are cancelled or stranded in the middle of nowhere.Chaos complete...

Situation on the railways.

Signal which is out of order... Like all in the red marked part of the country.

Time stands still.. No information available.

In case of a failure, the railway crossings are closed automatic. They are working with an accu in situations like this.But they stay closed so there are problems with the other trafic.

A stranded train. The passengers and the trainstaff left the train by foot.

Citybus.

2 stranded trains.

People got evacuated out of the trains, and walked some disances in the grass between the tracks and the water.

The energy is working again, but it takes hours to restart the railways now. First all the empty trains in the country has to go to stations. In some large stations there seems to be complete chaos.

Due to the reconstruction works at Schiphol airport, some trains between Amsterdam and Rotterdam are diverted and some others are 2 times longer than normal in the weekend, for the people who travel the diverted route. Normally trains are 4 or 6 carriages in the weekend here.

An Interctiy Amsterdam - Brussel with a Belgium Traxx and Dutch coaches.

Regional train Haarlem - Leiden. The tulips are not yet flowered at this moment. We have to wait a few sunny days...

This was a railway... until recent. It's now a walking route (where locals let their dogs shit)

Dismantled railway station in IJmuiden.

Mega fishtrawler. Aslo called fish factory.

Lighthouse of IJmuiden.

A small oil platform.

Pilot boat, and the TATA-Steel plant in the background. This complete area smells like burning coals. Just like a steam train... This specific foto location is also often used by the media, when it comes to the Al Gore movie about the CO2 reduction and climate change. Especially when the wetter is bad, you can have dramatic pictures here, like it's almost the end of the world.

A ferry to Newcastle in England.

Large ship in the ''ecluze'' between the canal from Amsterdam (Noordzeekanaal) and the Northsea.

Excursiontrain, around the steel plants. A few times a year, there are excursions with a train here, they start in the NS railway station of Beverwijk. You can see a lot of interesting places, when you are interested in industry.

Besides of green, yellow and red signs, there are some common signs;Yellow flashing/blinking: Driving on fiewing. The traindriver has to have the possibility to stop at every moment. This is a used sign when two trains combine to each other, when a train goes to a section where already is another train, goes to an endsection or goes to a section with a signalling faillure (short circuit etc).

Blinking Green: The train has a safe way, but has to reduce the speed (in compare to the normal section speed) Without a large digit number on the signal its always 40km/h. But there are mostly digit numbers underneath those signs which shows a 6, 8 or 12. (60km/h 80km/h or 120km/h.) This is used when a train goes to a switch with lower speed.

Yellow with a digit number under it: The train must drive that speed at the next sign. This is often used in crowded lines where the signals are closer to each other. With signals closer to each other, it's possible to handle more trains on a short distance between each other. But when a train drives fast, the distance between two signals may be to short to break. So a lower speed is used then.

Furthermore there are L, A and E plates with lights in it. L means Langzamer (lower speed) A means Aanvang (begin of the section) E means Einde (end of the section). Under the letter L there are one or 2 speed limits; in case of two limits, one for passenger trains and one for cargotrains. L A E signs are used for temporarily speed restrictions (I know you have a lot of them in Romania) the meaning of ''temporarily'' can be discussed, some signs are here already 2 years...

This one is used in WW2 between 1940 and 1945 to deportate Jewish people, mentally disabled people, homosexuality and other ''unwanted'' people from the Neterlands to Nazi camp Auswitz in Poland. This car is found in 2002 in Bucharest on a railway yard somewhere. The NS museum did bring it back to Netherlands from Romania in 2002.

De Kameel; ''Cămilă'' the ancient NS management train. The traindiver sits on the high part of the train, the staff and their guests could see a panoramic view over the railway from the frond and back.

Railway to runway mascotte.

Some scale models.

Original DH2 like you have in Romania.

Airport Schiphol (Amsterdam) has it's connexion on the railways since 1st june 1981.

First tracks in The Netherlands were in 1839; then it was wide gauge; 1945mm.

Every april, there is a parade in Netherlands in the ''flowerbulb regio'' with some 30 trailers with flowers on it. They drive a route with 5km/h of about 25 kilometers. After arriving in Haarlem city, the trailers stay there for several days in the streets.There were a lot of visitors yesterday along the route, about 1 million, among them a lot of tourists. I was there today, but the weather was bad for the time of the year. We have the coldest week in a april month sindce 50 years.